2012 BOOKPLATE - "JOURNEY"

"Journey"

8" x 10" Stippled Ink Drawing on Crescent Mat Board

Here it is - my 2012 bookplate.  This year's drawing was inspired from our spectacular trip to the West Coast this past summer.  I try to create my annual bookplate drawing to represent something significant from that year.  I work on these drawings during class while my students are creating their personal, ink drawings. 

I selected the images in this drawing for their symbolism.  I am a lifelong resident of the Oklahoma Panhandle and being a child of the high plains means I don't have much knowledge about seashells.  I love collecting them when we visit a beach but it wasn't until I decided to use them in my drawing that I discovered that each shell form and color is determined by the travels of the mollusk it protected.  Each seashell is different and represents the location, diet and journey it enjoyed or endured.  I think these shells symbolize where we have been.

I love compass and clock faces.  Last year's bookplate drawing was clock faces so a compass was right in line with what I had studied.  I intentionally configured each compass to be pointing a different direction.  I thought they would serve as a symbol for the choices we have in where we are going.

Finally I added a vintage map complete with a tall ship, navigation star and longitude and latitude.  The map doesn't depict any actual place.  I then decide to add the names of all my family members (including two new grand babies coming in February) in teeny-tiny print around the map.

Each year I create my stipple piece using only an 005 black ink pen.  Here is the pen I use.  The tip is almost as small as a human hair and gives me tiny little marks.  I love using this size of pen because it gives me control over my details.  It also means that a piece this size has well over a million dots.

I have already scanned this piece, created personalized book labels for my friends and family.  I think this is the tenth bookplate, ink drawing I've created.